Male infertility and the Pill

The Daily Mail reports that male infertility is on the rise and some are calling it a crisis:

One in five men could suffer from fertility problems. And scientists have warned that it's just going to get worse...

There's a crisis brewing, but it has nothing to do with the economic deficit or the current political uncertainty. Scientists are warning that rising levels of male infertility have become so perilous that it is a serious 'public health issue'. And some go even further.

Professor Niels Skakkebaek, of the University of Copenhagen, describes the issue 'as important as global warming'. Last week, one science writer even suggested, in starkly terrifying terms, that if scientists from Mars were to study the male reproductive system, they would possibly conclude that man was destined for rapid extinction.

And if it continues, this trend could indicate men are on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations.

From USA Today

Women have been taking synthetic estrogen as chemical birth control (better known as The Pill) for decades and then excreting it in their urine.  These synthetic hormones are not being removed from the water supply and the levels are not even being monitored.  Scientists are discovering that synthetic hormones are affecting the fertility of fish.  From the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Birth control may be harming state's salmon
Synthetic estrogen in water seems to affect reproduction

Birth-control pills can curb the reproduction of more than just the women taking them. Western Washington scientists have found that synthetic estrogen -- a common ingredient in oral contraceptives -- can drastically reduce the fertility of male rainbow trout.

The man-made compounds are showing up in waterways around the nation -- pumped into rivers, lakes and Puget Sound with water from sewage-treatment plants.

And they're being found at levels that can harm fish, possibly even this region's struggling salmon populations....

The findings are likely to fuel concerns about the environmental effects of chemicals that aren't being filtered out by sewage plants, including pharmaceuticals and pesticides that can mimic hormones.

In frogs, river otters and fish, scientists are "finding the presence of female hormones making the male species less male," said Doug Myers, wetlands and habitat specialist for the Puget Sound Action Team, the government agency coordinating restoration of the Sound.

There are no standards for how much synthetic estrogen and other hormones can be released in sewage and wastewater, and treatment plants generally do not monitor for it.

If synthetic estrogen can affect the "maleness" of fish, it such a stretch to think that the rise in male infertility might be caused by the Pill?  That synthetic estrogen in our water supply is making human males less male?  That a pill that takes a normal female cycle and turns it upside down would also affect male fertility in unexpected ways? Why is that NOT one of the many possible reasons cited by this article?

I wonder how infertile men everywhere would feel if they found out that it was synthetic estrogen in their water supply that might be the cause of their problems.  I wonder if that is why scientists and others are dumbfounded by the utter silence on this issue.  Could it be that the Pill is, like abortion, a sacred cow that no matter the devastation it wreaks, we would not dare speak a word against it? 

After all, the USA Today's celebration of The Pill's 50th birthday says that it is about equality.  Could it be that women who choose to be temporarily infertile maybe causing males to be infertile as well?  (That's equality for ya.)

Some people think a rise of male infertility is just fine.  We need less people on this planet anyway right?  Be careful what you wish for because you just might get it.  I have said many times that fiction often contains truth.  What seems impossible in a book or movie often comes to pass and often sooner than we would think. 

I am reminded of Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. This book if full of gems, but the "BlyssPluss Pill" really hits the nail on the head.  What is BlyssPluss?  It is a pill designed by Crake, the species-splicing genius, to do three things at once.  First, it would "protect the user against all known sexually transmitted diseases."  Second, it would provide "an unlimited supply of libido and sexual prowess" while "eliminating feelings of low self-worth."  Third, it would "prolong youth."

But that is not all.  From a conversation between Jimmy, the hero, and Crake:

    These three capabilities would be the selling points, said Crake; but there would be a fourth, which would not be advertised.  The BlyssPluss Pill would also act as a sure-fire one-time-does-it-all-birth-control pill, for male and female alike, thus automatically lowering the population level...

    "So basically you're going to sterilize people without them knowing it under the guise of giving them the ultra in orgies?"

    "That's a crude way of putting it, " said Crake.

There is just one catch.  Without giving too much away, it is the BlyssPluss Pill, and components therein, that eradicates the human race.  This guy thinks that scientists from Mars would conclude that is exactly where the human race is headed.

Insightful and prophetic?  I think so.